


Silence is knowledge (and knowledge is power)

by minkhollow



Series: Friends of the Warehouse [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Warehouse 13
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Grief/Mourning, casually derailing basically every remaining Warehouse villain arc, the Warehouse has two daddies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25269040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: Crowley runs an errand in Paris for Helena, and asks a few pertinent questions.
Series: Friends of the Warehouse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817719
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	Silence is knowledge (and knowledge is power)

**Author's Note:**

> Go read "Don't forget how this story begins" first, as it builds directly on some stuff that comes up in the second part of that.
> 
> Warehouse timeline has bumped up to 'somewhere between "Vendetta" and "Where and When"' for this outing - and as ever, I prefer the first timeline the show gave us for Claudia's backstory, making her 10 when Joshua disappeared and 22 when she fished him out of his dimensional pocket. Book Omens Apocanope Timeline makes her two years younger than Adam and Warlock.

Paris isn’t so bad, all things considered.

There are places Crowley avoids with everything he’s got, sure - a certain hilltop in Jerusalem springs to mind. The basin where that blessed flood started. That stupid fucking bandstand is the latest entry on the list. And one can only watch Belgrade be sacked so many times before it hurts too much to stay for another rebuilding. But for him, at least, the worst he can say about Paris is Aziraphale’s tendency to get monumentally stupid there in the name of a snack.

It’s a grim task he’s here for this time, but there’s no reason to make Helena do it herself and suffer even more. Besides, he can miracle his way past a lot of the red tape, not to mention the literal dirty work that’s likely to be involved.

The cemetery uprooted its below-ground burials in favor of crypts, sometime between 1899 and now. No doubt a portion of Helena’s not inconsiderable royalties are seeing to the crypt’s upkeep; even if she knew she’d never be able to come back, she’d look after her daughter. From there it’s easy enough for Crowley to get into the right area unbothered, and no one’s going to give him a second look when he leaves with a child-sized coffin in tow, either.

He just looks at the stone marking Christina’s second resting place for a long few moments. Eight years old - you can’t even really call that a life. No wonder Helena’s still a wreck over it.

“Hey, firecracker,” he says to the stone. “Aunt Crowley’s here to take you home.”

(She’d insisted on calling him that, even after he explained that he veers among genders as the mood suits, to say nothing of sometimes being a giant snake. She’d immediately asked if she could see the giant snake.)

Crowley sets the stone aside, not miracling it away so the empty crypt doesn’t catch notice when he’s done; besides, Helena knows her own daughter’s birthday and the worst day of her life by heart, so he hardly needs to bring it along. Then he leans over to get at the coffin… and frowns at the feeling of power emanating from inside the small interment space.

“Well. Your mum didn’t mention _that_.”

***

Getting out of the cemetery is one thing. Getting to the Warehouse is quite another, when the protections on her mean that Crowley can’t just miracle himself directly there. That doesn’t mean he can’t cut out _most_ of the travel time, but it does still leave him driving across vast stretches of fuck-off-nowhere, South Dakota. Better than traffic in the capital, he supposes, but it’s a blessed useful thing that he doesn’t actually need to fuel the Bentley.

He’s been out this way once before, in the ‘40s - some remnants from Dresden that he didn’t want to chance sitting in the rubble until someone got hurt on them - so at least he knows where he’s going. The charmingly-named Unnamed Unincorporated Settlement is as quiet as ever (there’s a lot to be said for keeping the Don’t Touch sign away from the seat of power, but this still seems a bit ridiculous), and by the time he pulls up in front of the Victorian house serving as employee headquarters, the Bentley’s in on the game, because of course she is.

Well, if anyone’s in, Bach’s “The Invisible Man” on full blast is bound to attract their notice. “No one asked you,” he grumbles, more on principle than anything; the Bentley doesn’t care, and he doesn’t expect her to.

His own fault, really, putting so much energy into her.

In any case, she does cut the volume when the noise attracts attention, in the form of a barely-adult human with box-red hair, dressed like a thrift store fell on them. They give the Bentley a once-over and a low, appreciative whistle. “ _What_ a set of wheels.”

Crowley grins as he gets out. “No point in settling for less than the best, I thought. Helena in?”

The human frowns, not as paranoid as Crowley’s come to expect from the supernatural-tchotchkes outfit but definitely puzzled. “That depends. Who the hell are you and how the hell do you even know her?”

“She and I go way back. Tell her Crowley’s back from Paris. She’ll know what I mean.”

“If you say so, dude, but if she doesn’t, you get to explain it to her.”

Rather than go inside, the human fishes an odd metal box out of a pocket, treating it more like a phone than anything and turning their back on him. The motion shifts the air about, and - well, he doesn’t have to look _that_ human at the moment, so he tastes the air to confirm it.

The scent of apples is positively clinging to this human. It’s not the over-processed reek of a perfume; in fact, it’s so subtle he’d be surprised if they’ve even noticed it’s there at all, the way human noses filter out familiar scents after a couple minutes. Besides, there’s a particular tartness to it that doesn’t happen often in American apples. Aziraphale would have a better idea, but Crowley’s not sure if it’s happened in Macedonian apples since around the time Alexander got poisoned by keeping the gods’ grand plan for him next door to his bloody house.

The Warehouse _really_ likes them.

Over the phone-thing, he hears Helena say, “Oh, _bollocks_. I’ll be right down.”

“Okay, but what--” The human sighs, closing the metal box and putting it away as they turn to face Crowley again. “Or she could hang up, that works too. What’d you do to scare her like this?”

“Eh, more shock than scare. She left something important in Paris and asked me to fetch it for her, but I didn’t say when I’d do it.”

“No, and you really might have done,” Helena says as she joins the other human on the front porch. “Thank you, Claudia. You may wish to let Leena know we’ll likely have another guest overnight.”

Crowley nods. “At least. Figured you’d want some company around who understands.”

“Is… that a good idea?” Claudia says. “You know, considering?”

“Kid, I’ve known about your workplace as long as it’s existed. Don’t worry about keeping secrets on my account.”

“Well, at least Artie’s off on a ping, so we don’t have to do damage control there. See you later.” Claudia heads for a beat-up tan El Camino and drives off; once she’s gone, Helena sighs.

“She’s right about that much. Artie has… not taken well to my reinstatement. Apparently, having been bronzed is reason enough to suspect I mean the world ill.”

“Someone forbid you ever change your mind about a thing. I do have a related question to that, but let’s get to wherever we’re dealing with this first.”

Helena directs Crowley to an empty patch of ground, near enough to the imposing hulk of the Warehouse’s front door to get water if they need it, but remote enough that a spot of crematory fire won’t damage anything else. Once they’re there, Crowley opens the Bentley’s boot and waits for Helena to join him.

“So, polymath, care to explain how a piece of that bloody trident ended up on your daughter’s coffin?”

Helena’s clutching at her locket, but Crowley really doesn’t expect her to stop holding onto that piece of Christina until well after they’re done. “I honestly did not know what it was in the moment. The shape was vaguely familiar, but I didn’t think anything of it until shortly before I asked them to bronze me. At that point, it was in a safe place, so I saw no reason to mention it.”

“Fair enough. Bloody thing never did know when to stop being a nuisance.” He remembers poor Hephaestion accidentally starting an earthquake with the thing (followed by Alexander declaring the gods had a plan for him and that plan was to protect humanity from this shit), and the constant tremors that meant it needed to be taken apart for storage, and hearing the spear was abandoned in Alexandria when the Romans showed up to ruin everyone’s fun. Aside from that, he remembers the fucking _mess_ that was asking a nomadic people to supervise an ever-expanding collection of supernatural tchotchkes (there’s a reason the Huns didn’t work out as Warehouse-keepers for long), and if they’re still moving any part of the massive hoard by hand, there’s plenty of possibility for things to get lost or even stolen.

Some random human deciding the crosspiece was the perfect size and shape for a job that needed doing makes sense. Still, there’s something Helena’s not saying, so he adds, “Is this the sort of thing I should take with me when I go?”

“Aren’t you in the business of offering temptation, rather than removing it?”

“I’m retired, and anyway I’m in the business of Earth still being around for as long as I can make that the case.”

After a long few moments, Helena sighs. “I don’t know if I can answer that question truthfully right now, and you deserve the truth. I have considered it - if I were to put it to its most devastating use, what harm would a few hours’ torment in Paris do? - but I’ve found myself with somewhat more ballast, of late.”

“Well, we can plan that I will for now, and I definitely won’t be taking you to Egypt any time soon.” Crowley would really rather not be stuck with the blessed thing, but if it keeps the world in one piece, he’ll do it. His safe could use some filling out, alongside his refilled insurance.

“That’s reasonable. Now, can we please get on with this bloody funeral?”

***

It’s not Hellfire - that would do the job so quickly nothing would be left, and besides, Christina never did anything in her life to deserve it - but Crowley does miracle up the fire regardless, to make sure it burns hot and long enough to do the job properly. After that, he calls up a blanket and some wine, pouring them each a glass and the rest of the bottle out next to the fire.

Helena’s too busy crying to talk for a good while, but Crowley expected that, and can’t blame her. She both never really did her mourning and has been grieving continuously for over a century - probably, now that he’s heard about the time machine angle, replaying Christina’s death in her arms over and over for a good portion of that time. Whoever decided bronzed people should still be conscious earned him a commendation he doesn’t need or want.

They really ought to get on destroying the remaining statue-people, melt them down or something. How many are going to be capable of coherent thought anymore, or communication with the other humans around them? And that’s not getting into the really old cases, some of whom would be down an arm or two from the faulty process. But that’s a bug to put in someone else’s ear.

“Talk to me about her,” he says, when the fire’s been going at least an hour.

“What - what about her?”

“Anything you like. First time you held her, some stupid misadventure she got up to as a toddler, something that made you ridiculously proud. The only thing I don’t want to hear about is the day she died. You’ve already run that into the ground. Tell me the good things.”

Helena draws a shaky breath. “She as good as taught herself to read. I was doing what I could around work, of course, got the alphabet into her head, but she was the one who made the leap from letters to words. I was sent to India with Rudyard for a case, and when I came back she read me a story. She was three.”

Crowley smiles. “Sounds about right.”

They trade stories, as best as Crowley can trade when Helena has more of them by default, until the sun sinks below the horizon, remembering a curious chatterbox who was gone far too fucking soon the best way he knows how. He adds some food to the space between them, for Helena’s benefit far more than his own; she’s not going to want to leave until the embers die down and they can gather what’s left, but there’s no point in her skipping a meal.

By then, it’s dark enough for him to turn his attention skyward. If there’s one thing he can say for the Badlands, it’s that the stars are _really_ fucking gorgeous; it’d be hard enough to get a view like this in London even without the light pollution, considering how often it rains there.

“I don’t take advantage of this view often enough,” Helena says, when she follows his gaze.

“You should, polymath. I didn’t put them up there to be ignored, you know.”

“Is that so. What _did_ you put them up for, then?”

Crowley sighs. “Might’ve known you wouldn’t let it go. It’s in the past.”

“Does that line work on Mr. Fell, darling? I dare say it’s as in the past for you as Christina is for me. Go on, tell me about hanging the stars.”

“Didn’t even put up anything like all of them, you know. It’s a big universe. Still, it… was probably my favorite of my jobs, before Lucy threw his fit and I demanded answers and everything went to shit. Took me a long time to be anything like that happy again.”

“Are you?” Helena never sounds this fragile, but then again, she’s a lot like Crowley in that she never lets herself be this vulnerable in front of anyone else. Well, almost anyone, in his case. Hopefully Helena’s found herself an exception to the rule, or will do sooner than later. Someone knows she’s waited long enough.

It’s a while before Crowley manages to answer, looking at the stars (some of his work’s visible at the moment, even) and thinking about making them, about what came after, about Aziraphale.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.”

***

It’s near sunrise when they finally gather up the remains of the fire and head back to the housing arrangement. Crowley suspects Helena’s going to sleep like the dead all morning, but for once he’s not feeling much like sleeping. All the better to see what’s what with the other humans calling the Warehouse home, at least the ones who are around at the moment. There aren’t nearly as many of those as there were last time he came through, which he supposes is down to technology - it’s probably made getting information a lot more efficient.

Leena, the one with her name on the housing arrangement, looks at Crowley for a long while and then smiles to herself, managing to be nearly as disconcerting as the Warehouse humans with a building taking up part-time residence in their heads generally are. “I’ll handle Artie if he gets back before you leave,” she says, before offering him a box of cookies to take home (he accepts, since Aziraphale will love them).

He hears the other human he hasn’t met yet’s name before he sees them, nearly panicking before he realises it’s _Myka_ , not Michael. She’s nearly as serious-business as old Wank-Wings, but not lacking in kindness the same way the Archangels are. It’s not often Crowley hears a human say they wish they’d been at a funeral, but Myka says it all the same, when she hears what Crowley came out here for.

And then there’s Claudia, the box-redhead with the scent of apples clinging to her. She hasn’t lost the childhood urge to ask questions about absolutely everything quite yet, nosing around the subject of how Crowley knows Helena, and exactly how long he’s been aware of the Warehouse; he realises with a start that she must be around Adam and Warlock’s age.

“How’d _you_ end up mixed up in this outfit, anyway?” he says. “They haven’t recruited this young in a while - you even old enough to have an arse-cover badge yet?”

Claudia shrugs. “Old enough? Barely, yes. College-educated enough, not so much, but I can only manage about one class a semester online around work, and that’s not really worth it. If I’m gonna do college, I’d like to finish before the heat death of the universe.”

“Formal education’s overrated anyway.” Crowley would know; he got a commendation for the glut of standardised testing, and to this day doesn’t understand why the humans decided that much misery was necessary for children.

“Tell that to formal education. As for how I got here? Hacked my way in.”

“Did you?”

Claudia grins. “And kidnapped a federal agent. My brother teleported himself into an interdimensional space when I was ten, and Artie knew more than he let on at the time, so I decided he was helping me with the rescue mission whether he liked it or not. I’m damn lucky I turned it into a job and not a prison sentence, but…”

“But you’d do it all again.”

“In a heartbeat.”

Oh, Crowley _likes_ this one. It’s also no surprise the Warehouse likes Claudia so much; it’s always been blessed rare for people to seek her out on their own.

In any case, she’s the perfect ear for the bug about getting rid of the remaining bronzed humans, especially if the way she blanches when Crowley tells her they’re all still conscious is any indication. “Oh god,” she says. “Oh _god_. We’re lucky MacPherson picked someone who hadn’t completely checked out of reality yet, if… oh _god_. I don’t know if Artie’ll spring for it, but you’re right, that’s - it’s past ‘cruel and unusual’ and out the other side.”

“Go over his head if you have to. Old Beehive would probably get behind you, and I’m sure some of the oversight folks would too. If they still won’t budge, tell ‘em a friend of the Warehouse put you onto the idea. There’s only the two of us who aren’t directly affiliated, so that ought to get their attention.”

Claudia snorts at Crowley’s choice of nickname for the Warehouse’s current bonded human (what’re they calling them, these days?), but the mirth doesn’t reach her eyes. “If it comes to that, I will. But you know I’m gonna keep digging until I figure out what you mean by ‘friend of the Warehouse,’ right?”

Crowley grins. “I’m counting on it, kid.”

***

Helena makes her way downstairs during the humans’ lunch hour, looking a right mess but also somewhat more settled, which Crowley takes as a good sign. She volunteers to handle the dishes afterward, leaving everyone else free to scatter; Crowley lingers in the kitchen, talking to her more than being any actual help.

“So, anyone told miss box-redhead what it means that the Warehouse likes her this much?”

Helena frowns. “I’m not certain, but she hasn’t mentioned smelling apples around me. I wasn’t aware that was a going concern.”

“I mean that she smells _of_ apples, polymath. In my experience, that only happens with one particular stripe of humans around here.”

“...Oh. Bloody hell. You’re - no, of course you’re certain, or you wouldn’t bother raising the point.”

“Sure wouldn’t,” Crowley says, “and if no one’s told her what it means you might want to, before Beehive’s head explodes or something and she has no _choice_ but to take it on. I’ve seen enough of those transfers to know it goes better when they’re ready for the responsibility.”

“I can imagine. Josephine didn’t discuss it much, but I think I could muddle my way through the basics, if no one else has. You’re absolutely right that she deserves the forewarning, but why not give it to her yourself?”

“Even you probably know more about how it works than I do. I’ve seen a fair bit of this, but it’s still a human thing.”

“There is that, I suppose.” Helena sighs. “Very well, I’ll see what I can do, if you answer a question for me.”

“Might do, depending on the question.”

“What _do_ you mean by calling yourself a friend of the Warehouse?”

Crowley can’t help smiling; that _would_ be what Helena seized on. “Don’t tell Claudia, I want to see if she works it out for herself. We both knew Hephaestion and Alexander before they started this little venture - separately, much like we didn’t meet you as a pair, but still. They took us for other humans at first, but the longer things went on the harder it got to keep up the charade, especially once the Warehouse developed a mind of her own. Neither of ‘em expected to be able to stick around for the long haul, so they asked us to keep an eye on their daughter when we could.”

“Thus keeping a constant presence in her life, if only on the periphery.”

“Exactly. We’re… well. We’re sort of godparents to her, for all she’s in a class of her own.” No wonder the idea of godparenting the Antichrist was such a natural-sounding notion, when Crowley thought of it - the only difference was that he and Aziraphale deliberately went in together on raising Warlock, rather than being asked separately. “This is a human enterprise, so we generally leave you lot to it. We don’t have decision-making power or anything, just a wider perspective.”

“I can see where that would come in useful, from time to time.” Helena smiles, small and tired. “Raising children suits you. I imagine it’s a comfort to know at least one of them isn’t yet lost to you.”

Crowley doesn’t say anything, not wanting to add any salt to Helena’s wounds that he doesn’t need to. She’s not wrong; raising children _oughtn’t_ suit him, but he’s always liked their fearless curiosity and endless potential. Even though they’re there and gone so blessed fast, he can’t help it. The Warehouse may be as close as humanity ever gets to a life on a similar scale to his and Aziraphale’s.

“Take the crosspiece with you,” she adds, unprompted. “I need - the fellow who let me out of the bronze was willing to facilitate my plans for it, and I don’t know whether he got all the pieces in place before I disposed of him. If Egypt is potentially on the horizon anyway, I’d rather be certain I cannot act on it.”

“Fair enough. If that’s the case, _talk. To. Claudia_ , and do it sooner than later.” Poking the hornets’ nest in Egypt runs the risk of fracturing his goddaughter’s consciousness in exactly the way that’d force the issue Claudia needs to be aware of, and Crowley would rather not see that happen. No one involved deserves that, not even old Beehive.

(Look, she’s just really unsettling, even by ‘bonded to the Warehouse’ standards.)

He lingers another couple days, to make sure Helena’s on a more even keel after her daughter’s second funeral, and heads out when word comes in that the remaining two on-site humans are headed back from whatever tchotchke chase they’ve been on. No point in ruining a good vacation with one of them railing about the injustice of Helena having a friend over, never mind that he’s known the Warehouse herself so much longer. Besides, if that one’s so dead set against Helena, probably better if they never know she had part of the blessed trident in such easy reach in the first place.

It was a grim task that brought him to South Dakota, and he’d really rather not be leaving with something that’s overall better off housed there. But all in all, he’s calling it a good visit.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what ping required Artie and Pete working together, but I do know why: It got the person most likely to object to Helena's old friend coming to visit and the person who _least_ needs to see Crowley's idea of a nightcap out of South Dakota. Blame the Warehouse, or Crowley's expectation this would be a smooth journey, or both.


End file.
